Idiom Plot
by ckret2
Summary: On a mission, Akamaru and Gamakichi are assigned by their masters to guard their hotel room. Though they hear some suspicious sounds from inside the room, they bravely guard it from threat. Whatever that threat may be. [Oneshot. Implied KibaNaruto.]


A/N: This is a request for the Naruto Flashfic community on LiveJournal, for Scottishfae. The request was for KibaNaruto. I wrote about a toad and a dog. My apologies. I hope you like anyway.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, this fic is also for shadowxxx on ffnet, who requested a fic featuring Kiba, and said when I suggested KibaNaruto that it would be fine. Thank you so much, and you've got a second request coming later on!

Disclaimer: Kishimoto owns the characters and the Naruto universe, I own this fic and its plot.

x

**Idiom Plot**

x

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Naruto formed the proper hand seals, put his hand on the floor next to Akamaru, and Gamakichi appeared. "Guard this room and warn us if anyone's coming, okay?"

"Uh, sure," Gamakichi said, glancing up at his summoner. "Hey, what's going—"

The door slammed shut behind Naruto, leaving Gamakichi and Akamaru outside in the hallway.

"Okaaay..." Gamakichi turned to look at Akamaru. "You on guard, too?"

Akamaru barked, and as Gamakichi is rather well educated for a toad and most summons are expected to have a degree of fluency in several languages, he understood the dog as well as if he'd spoken the human language. "Sure am."

Gamakichi nodded. "Then I guess we're in this together." He looked up, studying their environment. They were in a well-lit hallway, but he could see from a window that it was actually late night. White doors lined the walls at intervals all the way down until the hall turned a corner. "Where are we?" he asked.

"In a hotel," Akamaru explained. He was busily clawing up the cream-colored carpet. Strange, Gamakichi had thought only cats liked to claw up stuff like that. "Team 8 is on a mission and Tsunade sent Naruto along. He's getting extra missions because one of his teammates is missing, the other one is training with Tsunade, and Naruto's acting like a squeak bone on a bike."

Dog idioms, Gamakichi thought. He didn't bother to ask what on earth Akamaru was trying to say, though he was sure that described Naruto's personality perfectly. "So, what are we guarding? Treasure? A princess?" He wondered what kind of a mission this was. Protecting treasure would be fun. Gamakichi was a little more apprehensive about princesses. He'd heard a legend, once, about a princess who had kissed a toad and turned him into, of all things, a human. Gamakichi felt terribly sorry for that fellow, whoever he was.

"Uh, Kiba's room, I think," Akamaru said. "Though Naruto is in there, too." He crouched against the floor and sniffed at the crack under the door. "I don't think anyone else is in the room."

Gamakichi hopped next to Akamaru and squished his head on the floor next to him, although it didn't help him smell anything. "Do you have any idea what they're doing?"

"Nope," Akamaru said. "All I know is that Kiba got really excited when he heard that Team 8 was going on a mission with Naruto."

"Well, who knows," Gamakichi said. He turned back around and sat in the carpet, determined to do the best job possible at guarding whatever it was they were guarding. "It's probably a human thing."

Akamaru half whined, half growled. "Half the time I've got no clue what they're up to. Like this girl on Kiba's team, Hinata?"

"Yeah?"

"She had to fight a guy from her clan, Neji," Akamaru said. "I think he's trying for a position as the alpha male in the clan, right?"

"Right," Gamakichi said. He'd met Neji before. Rude guy.

"But he tried to kill Hinata," Akamaru said. "Where's the sense in that? She's not even the alpha female, I don't think. He should have fought her sire, but he didn't. He fought her. I just don't get it."

"Humans are just silly sometimes," Gamakichi said. "At least us toads don't have to deal with all that stuff. We just get along."

"Yeah, that'd be nice." Akamaru lay down next to Gamakichi, his head on his paws. "We've got it harder, here. It's a – what do humans say? It's a dog's life." He snorted, amused.

Human idioms, Gamakichi thought.

They didn't speak for a while, and Gamakichi realized how hungry he was. He'd been summoned right before dinner. He looked around the hallway – white wallpaper with little peach-colored seashells, pretty white light fixtures without a speck of dust on them. It was a very, very clean hall. That meant nowhere for bugs to hide. He sighed, and resolved to endure the hunger as long as possible, brave little toad that he was.

After a while, Akamaru lifted his ears. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Gamakichi asked.

"Sssh. Listen."

After a moment, he could hear it, too. From inside the room, someone was whimpering. Or moaning. A little bit of both; and it was getting louder.

"That's Kiba," Akamaru said, alarmed, getting to his feet and turning around. He scratched on the door and barked, "Kiba! Kiba, are you okay?"

The whimpering/moaning (Gamakichi dubbed it whimoaning and felt smart) halted, and Kiba called, "Y-yeah, it's fine, Akamaru. Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely! Just – ahh – just make sure no one comes by, okay?"

"If you say so," Akamaru said. Sighing/whimpering (Gamakichi couldn't come up with a better combination than simpering, and since that was already a word he couldn't use it), he turned back around to face the hallway and flopped down. "What's going on in there?" he asked.

"Hey, you know more than I do," Gamakichi said. "I'm just a summon, remember?"

"Right," Akamaru sighed.

Gamakichi looked around the hallway again. He began to hate the janitor, whoever it may be. Why couldn't hotels hire incompetent workers more often? He was hungry!

When he started staring at the wallpaper and wondering whether or not clams might count as bugs – crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, right? – he shook his head and turned to Akamaru. "Hey, how much do you know about this mission, anyway?" he asked. "Maybe we can figure out what's going on in there."

"It's a D-Rank mission," Akamaru said. "I think we're just heading to a little town in the southern end of the Land of Fire to help build something. It's construction work."

"Hmm." Gamakichi considered that. "Maybe Kiba and Naruto are going over the blueprints and don't want anyone to steal them?" he suggested.

They imagined Kiba and Naruto studying a large piece of paper with a bunch of tiny lines and numbers, and burst out laughing.

"It'd take both of them to find the top of the page," Akamaru said. "Heck, I learned to read before Kiba did."

Gamakichi snorted. It was a rare ability among toads, due to the lack of a properly shaped nose to make the sound. "That'd explain all the moaning going on in there," he said. "They're probably getting massive headaches."

At that moment, Naruto let out a deep, drawn-out moan, which was cut off at the end as if something had abruptly covered his mouth. Gamakichi and Akamaru looked at each other with more than a little bit of alarm.

After a moment, Akamaru murmured, "Well, that was a mood killer." Gamakichi chuckled half-heartedly.

Now there were more noises, something moving in the room. To drown it out, Gamakichi said loudly, "So, uh, what else do you know about this mission?"

"Um, well, we traveled most of the day," Akamaru said, raising his voice as well, from quiet woofs to slightly sharper barks. "We just walked south until we reached this village and decided to stay here for the night. We each got separate rooms, except Kiba and me. We're sharing a room."

"I see," Gamakichi said. "Where are the others' rooms?"

"Not in this hall," Akamaru said. "Shino, Hinata, and Naruto all got rooms near each other, but Kiba got our room last and requested to be as far from the other rooms as possible."

"Very odd," Gamakichi said. "Why do you think he did that?"

"I don't know," Akamaru said. "He wouldn't tell me. I asked, but he just said he'd explain later." He let out a small whimper. "I'm worried about him. What's going on in there?"

"I'm sure it's fine," Gamakichi said, although he had doubts of his own. "That's why we're standing guard, right?"

"What if whatever we're guarding against got in some other way?" Akamaru asked. "Through the windows, or something?"

Gamakichi thought that over a moment, then turned to the door and yelled, "Hey, Naruto! Everything okay in there?"

A long moment passed. Then Naruto said, in a strained voice, "Ah – yeah! Okay! Just stay... out there. Okay?"

"Sure thing," Gamakichi said. He turned to Akamaru and laughed nervously. "I guess that means they're fine."

"Guess so," Akamaru said.

They sat in silence for a while. Akamaru turned three or four times to sniff at the crack beneath the door, before he said, "Something in there smells funny."

"Like what?" Gamakichi asked.

"I don't know. I've smelled it before, but I don't know where," he said. "There's that, and there's a lot of sweat. Nothing dangerous, though. No blood or sickness or anything."

"Maybe they're just training," Gamakichi said.

"Maybe," Akamaru said. He was suddenly fixated by something on the ground, and began clawing up the carpet again. At least he was happily occupied, Gamakichi thought. He wondered if the people would get mad at them for messing up their carpet, and then cheerfully remembered that it was not his problem. Sometimes it was great to be a summon.

A ratty carpet was what those people running the hotel deserved for cleaning up the halls and scaring off all the bugs, Gamakichi thought.

Thinking of bugs made him hungry again, so Gamakichi tried to think up another distraction. "So," he said, "know any good songs?"

"Well..." Akamaru stopped clawing the carpet, and his tail drooped a bit. "None that I can sing. They're all human songs."

"Oh." Gamakichi rolled his eyes, another astounding feat for a toad. "You know, most elite nin-animals and summons can speak more than one language."

Akamaru growled. Apparently, he didn't take well to the suggestion that he wasn't elite. "What makes you think I can't?"

"You can't speak any human languages, can you?" Gamakichi asked.

"I don't need to! I speak enough different dog languages to make up for it," Akamaru said.

"Oh, sure," Gamakichi said. "Look, I know a bluff when I hear it."

"Veritatem dico!" Akamaru said indignantly. "Triam linguam scio!"

Gamakichi blinked. "Uh. Okay, I take it back. You know two languages."

"Triam scio. Triam!"

"Sure thing," Gamakichi said. "What language is that, anyway?"

"Latinam canis linguam est," Akamaru said unhelpfully, clearly taking glee in his new form of entertainment.

Gamakichi sighed, and croaked several impolite things at Akamaru in the toad language.

He gave Gamakichi an odd look. "Ni hen qi guai de lai ha ma."

Wonder-pup knew three languages, apparently. "Yeah? Well, your mom," Gamakichi muttered.

There was more noise coming from Kiba's room, like something bumping. It was getting to be a very rhythmic bump. Gamakichi and Akamaru did their best to ignore it; they'd each already bothered their masters once and didn't want to get in trouble by doing it again.

"What are we guarding them from, anyway?" Akamaru growled. "This is a D-Rank mission."

"Well, you know, the Akatsuki is after Naruto," Gamakichi said wisely, as if he'd discovered this himself, rather than hearing it from his brother who'd heard it from their dad who'd heard it from Jiraiya who'd heard it from a spy. "You can't be too careful about them."

"Oh yeah, we heard about the Akatsuki," Akamaru said. "That makes sense."

They fell silent again. Gamakichi, without anything to distract him from his hunger, turned again to studying the wallpaper.

That was when he saw what might have been the most beautiful thing he'd seen all night.

He had to blink several times to make sure it wasn't an illusion. He hopped a couple of feet closer just to see. But no, it was real. And it was glorious.

"Hey, do you see something?" Akamaru asked, concern in his voice.

"Oh, I see something, all right," Gamakichi said, slowly creeping up on the wonderful sight. Hovering just a couple of feet above the ground, moving at a lazy pace down the hall, was a big, black, beautiful bug. It wasn't even a measly fly, either; this was one fat beetle. It looked like it'd have more exoskeleton than anything edible under its shell, but at that point Gamakichi wasn't very particular. "Why hello there, dinner."

Akamaru glanced over, and immediately his ears were up and he was sniffing fiercely. He seemed to catch a scent, and his ears went even higher. "No! Don't eat—"

Gamakichi whipped out his tongue, catching the bug. He crushed it and swallowed it the moment he'd pulled it into his mouth. "Don't what?" he said.

Akamaru's eyes were wide and his tail had gone stiff. "That was... That was one of Shino's insects!" he said. "You just ate one of Shino's insects!"

"Oh," Gamakichi said. "Whoops." It was a tasty bug, though.

"Well, maybe he won't find out," Akamaru said. "I mean, it's just one beetle, right?"

"Sure," Gamakichi said. Really, he didn't care anyway.

By that point, not only was the bumping louder, but the other noises (whimoaning, Gamakichi remembered proudly) had increased as well. In the excitement over the bug, neither he nor Akamaru had even noticed, nor did they particularly care anymore.

They didn't have an opportunity to notice the sounds, either, because within a few moments they heard footsteps running from around the corner. Immediately, Akamaru moved to a defensive position in front of the door, and Gamakichi sat ahead of him. This was probably what they were supposed to guard against.

Two people came around the corner, and Gamakichi hopped up in front of them. "Hey! No way! Back off, we're on guard here. If you try to get past us, I'll... eh..." Gamakichi was, sadly, lacking in any weapons or abilities that could intimidate anything, except a fly. "My friend here will attack!"

"Calm down, it's just Shino and Hinata," Akamaru said. "They're on Team 8."

"Oh. Well, in that case..." Gamakichi hopped back to his position in front of the door, and grinned up at Kiba's teammates. "How ya doin'?"

Hinata stared at Gamakichi, utterly baffled by a talking frog. Shino seemed to have no such problems. "Some of my insects were scouting out the hotel, and one disappeared in this hall," he said. "We thought there was some problem."

"Oh, nah, not at all," Gamakichi said. "I was just hungry."

Shino radiated loathing for the toad.

"Don't worry about him," Akamaru said quietly. "He doesn't like Naruto either. You're kinda like Naruto."

"Oh." Gamakichi wasn't sure whether or not he should take offense at that.

"Wh-what are you doing out here?" Hinata asked. Her voice was quite high and trembling a bit. "Akamaru-k-kun? Where's Kiba-kun?"

"He's in this room," Gamakichi explained for Akamaru's sake. "He and Naruto asked us to guard the door. Dunno why."

Shino looked at the door suspiciously. "Hinata-chan, can you see what's going on?"

"Okay," she said, and whispered, "Byakugan." The veins around her eyes bulged out, and she looked at the door. Gamakichi thought it was a pretty cool trick. He wished he could get his eyes to do that.

Hinata gasped. Her face went vivid red, and then paled. Her mouth fell open in pure horror before she clamped a hand over it.

"Hinata-chan? What's wrong?" Shino demanded. When Hinata didn't move, stiff-backed, arms rigid against her side, Shino turned to Kiba's door. He put his hand on the doorknob, the knob became coated with insects, and the deadbolt clicked back. Shino pushed open the door and stepped over Akamaru and Gamakichi, into the room.

The noises immediately stopped. There was an almost imperceptible moment of silence before something fell over, Naruto screamed in shock, and Kiba yelled, "Shino, what the hell!" Akamaru and Gamakichi stood just outside the doorway, trying to peer into the room.

"What are you two..." Shino trailed off, baffled. "Um..."

"Can't we get any privacy around here?" Kiba said. He pushed past Shino into the hallway, wearing nothing but a bundle of sheets and a blanket. "Man, Shino-kun, what do you think you're..."

He froze almost nose-to-nose with Hinata, who was still dead white. "Um. Hi?"

She passed out. Kiba attempted to catch her, tried to pull up his sheets again, and ended up dropping them both. Hinata landed on top of his sheets, effectively pinning them against the floor where Kiba couldn't get them.

Kiba let out an embarrassed "Eep," and uselessly tried to cover himself. Blushing furiously, he looked at Hinata, at Shino, and finally at Naruto, before dashing past all three into the safety of his bathroom.

Gamakichi and Akamaru crept past Shino and into Kiba's room. "What's going on?" Gamakichi whispered.

"I don't know," Akamaru whispered back. "Kiba doesn't usually run around naked." He glanced across the room, and added, "Or Naruto."

Gamakichi looked up and fought back a snicker. Naruto had, apparently, fallen off the bed and hit his head against the floor, temporarily dazing him. Why he had been on the bed and why he had been naked was beyond Gamakichi but it made quite a sight.

Unfazed (or pretending to be so), Shino walked into the room and stood over the half-conscious boy. "Naruto-kun."

"Hmuh?" Naruto opened one eye a slit to peer up at Shino. He stared at him a moment as his mind slowly tried to match the face above him with an identity.

"Augh!" Naruto shot to his feet, pulling his knees together and making another futile attempt to cover himself. "Sh-sh-shino! What... you..." He glanced around the room, glanced at the bed, found all the sheets missing, and shouted, "Where did my clothes go!"

Gamakichi had both webbed front feet clamped over his mouth, trying not to laugh. Beside him, Akamaru seemed to be having similar difficulties. Shino was silent.

Naruto seemed to finally remember Shino's presence, and said furiously, "Shino, what are you doing in here? I knew there was a reason I didn't like you! Why are you staring, anyway?!"

"I'm not staring," Shino said, but didn't look away. "Your clothes aren't in here, Naruto-kun."

"Eh?" Naruto scanned the room, suddenly declared, "The bathroom!" and ran to the door. He jiggled the knob. It was locked. "What!"

"Go away!" Kiba shouted from the other side.

"But Kiba!" Naruto stole a glance at Shino, and changed his statement, "But Kiba-kun! I need my clothes!"

"I said go away!"

"C'mon! Just toss them out!"

"La la la la laa..."

Naruto stared at the door dejectedly, covering his front with both hands and exposing his butt to the rest of the room. "I can't believe it."

"You'll just have to go back to your room like this," Shino said.

At that, Gamakichi and Akamaru couldn't hold it in anymore. They cracked up laughing, or rather, howling in Akamaru's case. (Laughowling? Gamakichi thought. Howlaughing?) Shino glanced at them distastefully, Naruto dolefully.

"Some guards you are," he muttered, which made them laugh harder.

Naruto turned back to Shino. "H-hey, can't you help out?"

"No," he said.

"But, can I just borrow your coat or something?" he whined. "Please?"

"No," Shino repeated. "That's for suggesting I was staring at you."

"But you—" Naruto sighed in defeat, and asked dully, "How am I supposed to get to my room?"

"Run."

Naruto looked into the hallway, and gulped. "Here goes," he said, squeezed his eyes shut, and dashed out of the room into the bright, naked lights of the hall. He nearly ran into Hinata, who had just sat up, and promptly passed out again.

Meanwhile, Shino walked up to the bathroom door, and knocked on it twice. "You didn't tell us you were gay, Kiba-kun."

"I can't heeear yooou. La la laa, la laa..."

Gamakichi and Akamaru shot startled looks at each other. Gay? It was a vaguely familiar term to both of their young minds, but neither had much knowledge about it. The Talk is not common among animal species, as they are expected to just pick these things up. Unfortunately, sometimes the acquisition of that knowledge takes a bit longer among domesticated species and summons. It had somehow managed to miss Gamakichi and Akamaru entirely.

"What's that mean?" Gamakichi said.

"I'm not sure," Akamaru said. "I... think it has something to do with mating."

Well gee, Gamakichi thought, that didn't sound suspicious at all!

A shrill, feminine scream from somewhere on the other end of the hotel, shortly followed by various sounds of violence and Naruto's yell of pain.

Gamakichi figured his job here was done. Maybe he could go home and get a proper meal now. "Try to find out what you can about what's going on here," he told Akamaru. "We can talk the next time we run into each other." He could ask Gamabunta, too. He had a sneaking suspicious that this would be one of those awkward questions where he'd be told to ask his mother instead. "I want to know what all that whimoaning was about."

"All the what now?" Akamaru asked. Gamakichi disappeared with a puff of smoke, and he sighed. "Toad idioms."

x

_Thanks for reading! Please review, concrit, comment, whatever._


End file.
